H/T John Bonaccorsi
Francis Orrery Ticknor, The Virginians of the Valley
The knightliest knights of the knightly race
Who, since the days of old,
Have kept the lamp of chivalry
Alight in hearts of gold:
The kindliest of the kindly band
Who, rarely hating ease,
Yet rode with Spottswood round the land,
And Raleigh round the seas;
Who climbed the blue Virginia hills
Against embattled foes,
And planted there, in valleys fair,
The lily and the rose;
Whose fragrance lives in many lands,
Whose beauty stars the earth,
And lights the hearths of happy homes
With loveliness and worth.
We thought they slept! the sons who kept
The names of noble sires,
And slumbered while the darkness crept
Around their vigil-fires;
But aye the “Golden Horseshoe” Knights
Their old Dominion keep,
Whose foes have found enchanted ground,
But not a knight asleep!
Franics Orray Ticknor is buried in Columbus, GA
I don’t know how noble, but, there’s a definite sense of place. Reminds me of an old fellow who I was talking to at a scenic overlook restaurant on the Blue Ridge Parkway. He pointed down into the Shenandoah Valley and says to me, that’s my farm over there, and this is the first time I’ve ever been up here in 60 some years. LOL.
Ticknor, incidentally, was a mischling, so to speak, half-Northern and half-Southern. His background is treated on Page 9, the first page of the Introduction, here:
https://books.google.com/books?id=h7hNAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA9&dq=The+Poems+of+Frank+O.+Ticknor,+M.+D.&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiS0JrmnZfiAhWBdd8KHaI_ACoQuwUwAHoECAMQBA#v=snippet&q=qualities%20of%20the%20North%20and%20South&f=false
Gov. John Quitman of Mississippi was from New York:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_A._Quitman
Hunter, what’s that tree you show in all your tecent posts? We have one like that in Peoria, Il.
It is a Southern live oak from near Charleston, SC.
These trees are centuries old. I like to use it as a symbol of the continuity of Southern culture.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angel_Oak